


Rising Tide

by Lanerose



Category: Hikaru no Go
Genre: Gen, Hikago Team Deathmatch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-21
Updated: 2014-05-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 23:24:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1666295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lanerose/pseuds/Lanerose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Man has made many machines, complex and cunning, but which of them indeed rivals the workings of his inner heart?” - Pablo Casals</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rising Tide

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rex_sun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rex_sun/gifts), [Phnx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phnx/gifts).



> The theme to which this fic responds was umami. Umami as a flavor took a very long time to be discovered. People tasted it, but they couldn’t quite find a way to describe it or explain it. This is meant to reflect that aspect of it.

_Go Weekly, August 23, 20XX  
“Hokuto Cup,” con’t. from p. 1_

“...proved himself by making it a close match - only a half moku difference!” exclaimed Kurata-sensei, whose controversial decision to place Shindou 1-dan as first board has been much called into question in recent days. “Shindou has been flying beneath the radar long enough. At least now his opponents will have some idea what they’re getting into.”

Perhaps the most interesting reaction to the controversy came from the second dan who ought to have played against Ko Yeongha: Touya Akira. Touya 3-dan played an excellent match against Korea’s Im Irufhan, seemingly unaffected by the last minute switch in opponents. After defeating Irufhan, Touya 3-dan remained in the room to watch the match between Shindou, and it was Touya who escorted a visibly upset Shindou from the room after the last stone had been counted in Shindou’s own match.

“Ko Yeongha is a talented player and I hope that I will have the opportunity to play him at some point,” Touya said during the post-match press conference. “I am proud to have had the opportunity to represent Japan at these games and with these teammates.”

Shindou winced when the room exploded with questions about why the switch had been made and what Touya’s reaction to it was. Yashiro 1-dan rolled his eyes. Touya 3-dan, however, smiled pleasantly as always.

“The match between Ko-san and Shindou-san was truly excellent,” he said, speaking loudly enough to cut off all discussion. “There can be no questions left when such excellent go has been played.”

Maybe so for Touya 3-dan, but the rest of the world respectfully disagrees.

***

The salon went quiet as the door shut behind Hikaru, the jingling bell a lonely noise that made it entirely clear that the whole room had been talking about him. Rooms had been going quiet around Hikaru a lot, lately.

“Good afternoon, Shindou-kun,” said Ichikawa, whose smile was slightly nervous but otherwise precisely as Hikaru remembered it. Hikaru reached into his pocket to retrieve the fee, but Ichikawa shook her head. “He’s waiting for you in back. Tea today?”

Hikaru smiled and shrugged out of his backpack, placing it on the table. “Thanks, Ichikawa-san.”

The old geezers whispered behind Hikaru as he headed into the playing area. Touya was seated, as always, facing toward him at a goban. He was clearing the board, sorting stones from a now indistinct pattern into neat piles.

“Touya,” Hikaru said. Sharp eyes looked up. Hikaru sat down and grabbed one of the stone bowls, glancing into it to ascertain color (black) before he started gathering stones.

“Shindou,” Touya replied. He watched Hikaru for a moment, then, without comment, returned to gathering the white stones from the board.

Ichikawa came and went while they cleaned, leaving a warm cup of tea at Shindou’s side as she departed. No one else approached.

When the goban was clear again, they sat in silence.

“Nigiri?” Touya asked eventually.

Hikaru smiled, a quick flash of an expression. “Please.”

“Please.”

The pattern was familiar after that - an exchange of bowls, opening plays and moves. Touya’s go was strange, though - testing here, an unusual shape there. Hikaru replied, firm and steady here.

They were half-way through yosei when Touya studied the board and shook his head.

“I have nothing,” he said, dropping stones on the board.

“Thank you for the game,” Hikaru replied.

“Thank you for the game.”

They cleaned the stones from the board together, pulling apart the game in tacit agreement that discussion wasn’t necessary then. It wasn’t the first time Hikaru had won - not even the first time recently. Some of Touya’s moves had clearly been questionable, but Hikaru knew what was being asked.

“Shindou...” Touya started, his hands fitting the lid back onto the bowl. Hikaru rose to his feet, gathering up the cup that Ichikawa had left.

“Same time next week?” Hikaru asked with a careless grin, and Touya’s hands settled the lid firmly into place, his expression tightening.

“I’ll be here.”

***

_Go Weekly, January 5, 20XX  
“Ouza Preliminaries,” con’t. from p. 3_

. . . and will be advancing for the third straight year. As discussed in last week’s issue, Shindou 2-dan has also advanced to the round robin tournament, following his victory over Gokiso 7-dan. The aging pro resigned early, after only the 120th hand, in a decisive win for Shindou 2-dan. Shindou 2-dan is best remembered for his loss to Ko Yeongha at the Hokuto Cup earlier this year. Shindou’s position as first board in that match has been hotly debated, and sets a curious light on the last match in the Ouza preliminaries.

The one match yet to be decided is the much anticipated contest between Touya Akira 3-dan and Kurata Atsushi 7-dan. This battle pits one of go’s most anticipated and brightest stars against the sudden prodigy who appeared from obscurity to win last year’s Young Lions Tournament. Both participants have been in the chase for a title previously. The eventual winner of this match is considered to have an excellent chance at being the potential challenger for the title. Perhaps most interestingly, the match will place the Hokuto Cup team coach against the player he denied first board to.

Who will win? We’ll find out when Touya 3-dan and Kurata 7-dan play this Thursday, at 10 a.m., at the Tokyo Go Institute.

***

“Oi, Touya!” Shindou called as they exited the players’ room for the lunch break. “You coming for lunch?”

Akira looked around. Shindou stood alone, none of his insei friends gathered about. It looked like the few who were at the Go Institute that day were already in the elevator, the doors to which slammed closed as Akira pulled his shoes from their box.

“I know a place that does great ramen,” Shindou said.

“We had ramen last time,” Akira protested. “Don’t you eat anything else?”

“Waya dragged me out for sushi yesterday, and I _know_ you don’t like NcDonald’s.” Shindou rubbed the back of his head. “Yakitori?”

“Yakitori’s good.” Akira replied. The elevator pinged open and the two stepped inside.

“I saw the kifu from your match against Kurata-san last week,” Shindou said as the doors closed. “I can’t believe you let him take sente in the center like that.”

“Let him? Shindou!” Akira crossed his arms and leaned towards Shindou.

“Yeah,” Shindou said, suddenly sheepish again. “Still, it would have been fun to be in the same league as you.”

Akira settled back on his heels, arms relaxing. “Yeah.”

The elevator pinged again, doors opening into the lobby. Shindou grabbed his wrist and tugged.

“Let’s go!”

***

_Go Weekly, May 6, 20XX  
“Clash of the Young Lions,” con’t. from p.1_

“ . . . but I will continue to get stronger,” said Ochi 2-dan after his third-round defeat by Touya Akira 4-dan.

Many have expressed regret in the days since the tournament that the match between ultimate victor Touya 4-dan and Shindou Hikaru 3-dan took place in an earlier round. No official kifu of the match exists because, as an early round match, it was not recorded. Nevertheless, if the reports are to be believed, it was truly a match for the ages.

“While I do think that I played well in this tournament,” admitted finalist Saeki 5-dan, “even I think that seeing the match between Touya-kun and Shindou-san might have been more interesting as a final. There’s something about the way that those two play - maybe it’s a rival thing? Still, I’m proud of my game today.”

As someone relatively close to the players involved, Saeki 5-dan’s words seem to confirm the long rumored rivalry between Touya 4-dan and Shindou 3-dan. The precise nature of the relationship is still unknown, although both players are frequently seen in each other’s presence.

“All of my opponents played extremely well,” said Touya 4-dan, who declined to comment further on any preference among his opponents.

Regardless of what the future brings, _Go Weekly_ will be there to cover our growing young lions!

***

The thing about Shindou and Touya that bothered Yashiro the most was that they didn’t even realize what they were doing. It was nothing personal - they just literally did not realize that anyone else was in the room with them unless there was a good reason for doing so.

“What kind of move is this?” Shindou yelled, gesturing at a point in the upper right corner of the board. “You think you’re going to defeat Ko Yeongha playing stupid moves like this?”

“Oh, you mean you’re actually going to let me play him this year?” Touya yelled right back. “And it’s not stupid. Or at least it’s not any stupider than your keima over here!” And Touya stabbed his finger at the upper left. “What kind of idiot make this kind of move?”

They’d been going at it for five minutes, and Yashiro was stuck in a sort of horrified fascination because oh God, he’d forgotten they were like this.

“Idiot? Idiot?!?” Shindou huffed. “Because it’s a real genius that plays a cut like the one you did over here? And who ignores a ko threat like this one?”

Touya had actually gone a bit red as he sneered, “Obviously anyone with half a brain since the important ko threat was the one that you let me win over here.”

“You’re right, I did let you win, because that’s the only way you could have won it and because you winning it helped me, moron!” Shindou replied. “In fact - “

Yashiro tuned them out and looked around. Shindou’s fan was clutched tightly in his right hand, being waved about and used to stab at different points on the goban. That was all right. Yashiro walked across the room and dug into his bag, digging out the rather large fan that he had relied on last year.

“Besides, it’s not like - OW!” Shindou’s reply cut off as Yashiro whacked him firmly across the back of the head. Touya looked like he might still be inclined to argue Shindou’s point, so for good measure, Yashiro whacked him, too. Touya looked both affronted and embarrassed, almost as though he knew it was necessary.

Yashiro sat back down beside the goban, still holding the fan.

“Anything useful either of you has to say still, or is it my turn?”

The pair of them mumbled indistinctly as Yashiro spared a moment to be grateful that Kurata would be arriving to chaperone them in a few hours.

***

_Go Weekly, September 7, 20XX  
“The New Wave,” con’t. from p. 1_

. . . from the last three years have been some of the most successful players to come up through the ranks.

One cannot speak of the new wave, however, without addressing the relationship at its centerpiece. The unlikely friendship and rivalry of Touya Akira 4-dan and Shindou Hikaru 4-dan has brought about some of the most exciting matches seen recently. The two players are both extremely gifted, their skills well-honed and particularly sharp against one another. Even without that focus, each is often more than many of their contemporaries can handle.

But how did that rivalry get started?

“Shindou’s rivalry with Touya was maybe the first thing I knew about him,” said Waya 3-dan at the recent Hokuto Cup tournament. “Some of the insei were talking about Touya and Shindou, who had just passed the insei exam, interrupted us all to declare that Touya was his rival. Right, Isumi?”

Isumi 2-dan, who was also in attendance, nodded.

“We thought he was kidding.” He laughed. “I guess the joke was on us.”

“They’ve been playing each other since they were twelve,” mentioned Ochi 3-dan. “Touya told me that once.”

As our readers will likely recall, twelve was the age at which Shindou 4-dan reportedly began playing go. No record exists of him playing prior to that time. But a rivalry that started when one player had barely begun to play?

“That’s right,” agreed Ogata Jyudan. “I remember Akira-kun mentioning that Shindou couldn’t hold the stones properly the first time they played. Akira-kun once entered a middle school tournament specifically so that he could play Shindou.”

Both Shindou and Touya declined to comment on how their rivalry started, although both players acknowledge that the rivalry has been important to their careers.

“Touya’s the reason I decided to play professional go,” Shindou 4-dan said. “I didn’t even know it was a profession until he told me.”

“Shindou was the first player my age to keep up with me,” replied Touya 4-dan. “It would be hard for that not to have an effect.”

“Even if that effect was to slow down your entry into the professional world?” asked Ogata Jyudan, who happened to be on hand when Go Weekly caught up with go’s brightest new stars. The conversation devolved from there into a surprisingly age appropriate argument between the two sixteen year olds. It’s often easy to forget that Touya 4-dan and Shindou 4-dan are both still under the age of majority, and therefore a refreshing change of pace to be reminded.

The precise effect of their rivalry is also still hotly debated.

“When you see not one but two players your own age doing so well, it’s a lot easier to believe that you can do it yourself,” commented Asumi Nase 1-dan. “Yes, they’re both better than me now, but I remember being better than Shindou, and watching them switch back and forth reminds me that the race is long enough for me to pull ahead again.”

“They’re like umami,” said Kurata 7-dan, who declined to explain further in favor of joining several other pros for ramen.

Perhaps the most interesting opinion belongs to Kuwabara-Honinbo, who laughed when asked to comment on the leaders of the new wave.

“They’re not a new wave,” he said, still chuckling, “they’re a rising tide.”

***

_“A rising tide lifts all boats.”_ \- Traditional proverb


End file.
